Through the Smokies in 4.5 days, a hiking primer, Part I

As my girlfriend, Ashley, departed Hot Springs for Pennsylvania on Monday, April 5, Early Bear [GA->ME '09] and I headed south in a shuttle driven by Gene Laney. While we were making a pit stop at a gas station, Gene told Early Bear how he had been 17 when the Tennessee Valley Authority built Fontana Dam, at the southern tip of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in the 1940s.

The Smokies, like the Whites in the north, have rules that differ from those that prevail along most of the Appalachian Trail. Mainly they have to do with the shelters.

There are 12 shelters along the 70 miles of AT in the Smokies. Because the Smokies get more visitors than any other US national park, backcountry hikers must submit reservation forms for the shelters. Tenting is prohibited, but if you are staying in a full shelter as a thru-hiker and section hikers show up with reservations, you must vacate, either to hike on or to tent outside. Early Bear experienced this.

Seven of the 12 shelters have privies. That's just something to keep in mind heading in.

Dogs aren't allowed; horses are. Though I never saw a horse, I saw plenty of footprints, and many of the shelters have places for parking horses. It gave the trail a more western feel.

We hiked out of the Fontana Dam visitors center at 1 p.m. The dam had an "I Am Legend" feel, or a "Silent Hill" feel, as Miguel put it before I went to Asheville: A huge, man-made place, a vast, empty road and a giant hole disappearing into the earth, and it's eerily quiet.

[Island in Fontana Lake, April 5.]

We headed up the mountain at 1 p.m. At the end of an unseasonably hot day we claimed spots in Mollies Ridge Shelter. Like all of the Smokies shelters, it had two levels accommodating about six people each and a roofed table area. We met some new hikers, one of whom wowed everybody with his tiny wood-burning stove and another who hung his hammock inside the shelter. Thankfully snoring was kept to the minimum. That wouldn't always be so.

To be continued...

Spring break in retrospect, Part III

On Saturday, April 3, Ashley and I drove west to Hot Springs, NC. The Appalachian Trail passes straight through the town. In fact, the AT symbol is etched in the town's sidewalk, replacing the white blazes until the trail crosses the French Broad River.

We got a nice little hotel room with a view of a bank of daffodils with cats tackling each other while using the flowers as cover. Then we hit the hot tub. Hot Springs is a tourist town, and one of the main attractions is the mineral baths fed by spring water. You get your own hot tub next to a creek feeding the river, with a roof and a door, where you soak for an hour. It felt amazing. It was even better with the clear, fresh water rather than the chlorine bath you normally experience in a jacuzzi.

[Ashley hot tubbing in Hot Springs, April 3.]

We hit the Smoky Mountain Diner for dinner. Fried everything: Chicken, okra, fries, broccoli, etc.

Outside we saw this bus:

Early on Sunday morning we got suited up in wet suits at a river expedition company downtown. There were three rafts. Ours had three couples, including us, plus our guide. Our trip was to be nine miles, to be completed in about three hours. We'd hit Class I, II, III rapids and one Class IV rapid.

Somewhere more than halfway down the French Broad we hit a Class III rapid with a steep drop. Ahead of us we watched as the young man guiding one of the other rafts bounced off the rear of his raft and went overboard. This could be exciting, was the thought that went through my head.

Ashley and I were in the front of our raft. We went over hard. I bounced off my section of the raft [everybody sits on the raft, not in the raft] and landed in a pool of water in the front of the raft. Ashley had had the foresight to hold onto a cord. In the aftermath of the landing I looked back and saw that we'd lost three people: The two other dudes and the guide. All gone. It was me, Ashley and two women, one of whom was suddenly panicking: "What do we do? What do we do?"

Our raft kind of made that decision for us, in the short term. We drifted into a calm spot at the edge of the river. Meanwhile our fellow rafters and their paddles were floating downstream, where the two other rafts collected them temporarily. We had one more steep drop to go down, and we got the courage to just do it. Thankfully the raft did most of the work and we picked up our guide and the other two dudes.

Later that day I found out I'm accepted at Temple University and waitlisted at Notre Dame. That was exceptionally good news. I still have yet to hear from half the schools I applied to for the fall.

Early Bear joined us for dinner. He said he had scheduled a shuttle for us from Hot Springs to Fontana in the morning. I didn't like the price, or the 7 a.m. departure, so I told him I got a guy, a "hiker's friend from beginning to end." In the morning, EB and I boarded Gene Laney's shuttle, and Ashley drove back to Pennsylvania. She'll be coming down twice more to see me before I finish up at Harper's Ferry in June. I can't wait to see her again.

Meanwhile, EB and I had some serious hiking to do in the Smokies...

Spring break in retrospect, Part II

[Bluegrass jam at Jack in the Woods, a tavern in downtown Asheville, on Thursday, April 1. Musicians would pop up on stage and replace each other periodically.]

[Us, random place in Asheville, random time.]

I forgot to mention Chocolate Love. We stopped at this little shop on Wednesday, March 31, Ashley's first day in Asheville while we were walking around town. I didn't know what I wanted but I was sure it would have to have something to do with ice cream. At the server's suggestion I had a beer float: Vanilla ice cream in a locally brewed stout, which tasted like Guiness.

[Perfect hiker drink! Ice cream in a stout beer, Chocolate Love, Asheville. It felt good to be in town clothes.]

[Ashley having chocolate custard, Chocolate Love.]

On Friday we met Johnny Thunder and Freefall at a cafe downtown and went for a drive into the mountains above town, along the Blue Ridge Parkway and into Pisgah National Forest. We stopped at an overlook, and I peeled out in the gravel in Ashley's manual transmission car while Johnny whooped Dukes of Hazard style.

We got out in Pisgah and hiked a few miles on trails near the Parkway. It was summer-hot but the trees had yet to start budding. In the afternoon the four of us road walked down to our car. On the way we walked through a tunnel through the mountain, with cars passing close by in the darkness.

[Freefall, Johnny Thunder and Ashley. Tunnel walk!]

The road provided the best view of the Biltmore Estate, the Vanderbilts' summer estate from the Gilded Age, short of paying the $60 entrance fee. The estate was miles away in the valley.

That night Johnny and Freefall had us over for dinner: Vegan lasagna with toast. Johnny and Freefall have taken organic living to heart: They don't drive, they have a garden and they eat vegan. I was impressed, and I think Ashley was, too. I think it's a good thing that our generation is starting to embrace a way of life that feels better than driving all over and eating fast food without caring about where the energy or food comes from. Even in the hostel, Sweet Peas, each light switch had above it a laminated sign asking guests to conserve energy by keeping the lights off as much as possible.

For dessert we returned to Chocolate Love, by way of downtown Asheville, where we happened upon a drum circle in a small park. It was kind of nuts.

[Friday night drum circle in downtown Asheville, April 2.]

This time we had about a 45-minute wait at Chocolate Love. It's a hot night spot apparently. But again it was delicious. We thanked Johnny and Freefall for their hospitality. I'm sure I'll see them again soon, when they bicycle from Asheville to Damascus, VA for Trail Days.

To be continued...

Trail fail!

Stickery ambush on the top of Snowbird Mountain. I've just left Standing Bear Farm [hostel] and Early Bear and I are headed to Hot Springs.

Spring break in retrospect

After a drinky night at Fontana Village, spent with many of the same people whom I gathered with outside mine and Tintin's hotel room in Franklin, I got a shuttle ride to Asheville, NC with Gene Laney, 82, whose business card reads "A Hikers Friend from Beginning to End." I got mildly carsick twisting along the hills. The ride from the middle of nowhere to Asheville took nearly two hours.

In Asheville I stayed at a brand new hostel called Sweat Peas. I spent an hour or two waiting for it to open at Malaprops bookstore. Outside it was sunny, warm and young buskers stood on almost all of the corners, including just outside the bookstore, where a young bearded man played a mandolin for passersby.

At night I realized why the hostel gives guests a fresh pair of ear plugs upon check-in. Just below the hostel, which I shared with maybe five other people, a dueling piano night took place in Lab, a hopping brew pub. The pub owner also owns the hostel. The music traveled easily up through the floor.

The next day, Wednesday, March 31, Ashley arrived after noon. We booked a private room in the hostel, actually more like a windowless cell, but comfortable, and walked through the sunny streets. We ate the lunch buffet at the much-heralded Mela, an awesome Indian restaurant five minutes' walk from the hostel. The chicken masala was every bit as good as Miguel [class of 2010] said it would be. Then we got me a haircut. It was due. I was, as Ashley pointed out, getting the mad scientist look.

That night we met Johnny Thunder GA->ME '08, LT '09, at Barley's, yet another brew pub. Ashley and I did the alpine slide with Johnny and his girlfriend, Freefall GA->ME '08, in Rutland, VT last year when Ashley came up to visit me. Ashley gave them a ride while she was waiting for me to come down from the mountain to the Inn at Long Trail. That's when Ashley and Johnny realized they were in the same graduating class in college. Small world!

Anyway, the three of us went on to win 2nd place in the pub trivia contest. We dominated the whole game until the final round, when another team jumped from like 8th place to first with a 15-point wager. Our $15 prize made a nice dent in our bill for pizza and beer. Johnny gave me a bunch of tips for things to do and places to see on the southern half of the AT.

On Thursday, we went to REI and got outfitted. I got a warm jacket for the Smokies and inquired about swapping out my defective sleeping bag. Ashley got a pillow and a pack cover: She's getting prepared for the two AT ection hikes we plan to do this summer.

Next: Massages! We got a 30-minute couple's massage at a spa just around the corner from our hostel. I ordered the deep-tissue, she had the Swedish. It seemed over too quickly.

We switched to a downtown hotel that was the same price as the hostel, but which included a view, a private bathroom, fridge, TV and more space. It was a no-brainer. That night we caught a bluegrass jam at Jack In the Woods.

To be continued...

Hi!

So yes, it's been more than a week since I blogged here. I was on vacation in Asheville and Hot Springs, and I'll be posting all about that soon.

But for now, I'm doing the Smokies in one stretch with Early Bear. At the moment we're at a popular parking spot at Newfound Gap, where the road goes into Gatlinburg, receiving trail magic.

Perfect warmup for the 900 feet of climb coming up.

Smokies!